Challenge #4: With A Little Help From Our Friends

From day one this website has been about keeping it real with other artists and creatives about the ups, the downs and all the in-betweens of living a creative life.  So let me just say straight out that last week was really rough for me emotionally.

I found myself feeling like everything I did was crap, like none of this “creative” stuff I do really matters and that nobody even cares that I do it at all. How could I have been foolish enough to think that anybody would really care about my work let alone want to pay me money for it!?  Basically I sat around having a pity party for myself wondering why I wasn't like a “normal” person, with a “normal” degree and a “normal” job where life would be so much much much less complicated.

But I don’t have to explain this to you guys, you know exactly what I mean I’m sure.  We’ve all been there at one time or another.

Sometimes in this creative life I lead I feel as if I am essentially drudging my way through some dark, murky and infinite abyss.  I keep flailing my arms about around me as I go, hoping to find some sort of hand rail, or wall, or defined pathway, to let me know I’m heading the right direction and not simply around in circles but all I ever seem to come up with is air.  So without any other recourse I simply keep plugging along in the darkness, hoping the direction I set out on will eventually get me to where I want to be and not into some bottomless pit, or off a cliff along the way.  Sounds enticing doesn’t it?

The beauty and the curse of a creative life is that it has no boundaries, it has no rules, it has no predecessors to simply follow along behind.  The course for everyone is their own, they get to make up their own rules, their own path and their own way to travel the distance to get to their goals.

I always find myself looking around at other creatives and thinking that their paths are so pretty, clearly labeled and that they look like they are traversing them so effortlessly.  While mine on the other hand resembles more of a swampland, combined with a mine field, and maybe a few ravenous wild zombies chasing me while I run around like a crazy person trying not to get blown up or drown in a pool of goo.

But that’s the thing, our paths never look as pretty to us as they do to others.  They never look as clear to us as others seem to perceive they are from the outside.  While we can get lost in a maze of our own making, others can look at our lives and see the beauty in the path we’ve followed.

I found myself thinking a lot about this while I was aimlessly wandering around my creative path, avoiding the ravenous zombies, this past week.

When I am lost in my head so deep that I can’t even see which way is up (like this past week), my friends are always there to offer that outside perspective and let me know which way is up again.  It’s so easy to loose track of where we are and how far we have come as creatives, that being given the gift of understanding how others see you from their perspective is one of the most amazing gifts that can be given to another artistic soul.

Creative people tend to be so insecure about their work and assume, no matter how many time you may tell them, that nobody likes what they do, or that nobody cares.  Hearing the contrary from another human being can be life altering.  It can literally mean the difference between someone throwing in the towel for good on their work or continuing to pursue their passions no matter the challenges they face.  A simple “Hey, I think what you do is amazing,” can literally be that important in the life of a creative person.

So on that note, the challenge I put to you this week is to encourage as many of your creative friends as possible!  Send them a hand written note, post a comment on their website, shoot them a message on Facebook, invite them to coffee, whatever, just let them know that you care and that you think they and their work are amazing and of great value.  You have no idea how much something that simple could change their life. If you can’t think of what to write or say, feel free to grab this weeks challenge badge to share with them!

Now, on the flip side of the coin, maybe YOU are the creative person who could really use this bit of encouragement in your life.  Maybe YOU need to hear that what you do matters, and that your work is of value and importance.  I learned a long time ago that there is nothing wrong with admitting that you need a little encouragement! (In fact, I think I pretty much told Kate point blank that I needed a pep talk last Monday at our weekly meeting) If that is the case, we have something special just for you!  Shoot us an e-mail at: theartabyss@gmail.com with your home mailing address and get ready to receive a little something special from us to you. (We promise your info will stay secure and that you won’t get on some weird mailing list.)  Make sure you get your address to us ASAP since we have a limited number of special somethings we can send out!

So there you have it lovely people, mission encourage a creative is officially a go!

If you’ve ever been creatively lost along your own path we’d love to hear about it! Drop us a line in the comment section below to share your story!

The Case For Fun

This is our very first challenge week here on the Art Abyss and we are talking about taking time everyday to do something fun for yourself.  Ok, now before you start going down the thought trail I know half of you are already going down, I know this idea may sound petty, but it's not.

I also know most of you are thinking, "I just don't have time for that."  Kate's been there, I've been there, we get it.  When you have a list of 50 things to get done, clients breathing down your neck, phone calls coming in every 15 minutes, orders to ship, meetings to attend, a desperate need to do something that will put some money in your account, the last thing you think you have time for is fun.

But what if I told you that if you took a 30min break everyday to do something fun, it would actually make you more productive, more creative, and more emotionally stable?  It's true.  I know because 1) I've done the research to prove it and 2) I've been there.

As much as we think devoting all our time and attention to our work 24/7 is what needs to happen for us to be really successful in life, we need to come to terms with the fact that that is a lie.  It took my brain literally years to come to terms with this fact.

As your inspiration for this week and to help you with your challenge I wanted to share a video from the 2011 TEDX conference in Bulgaria.  At first most of the talk is devoted to the sad state of affairs Bulgaria has found itself in recently, last in europe for business, education and social wellness.  However, the discussion takes a rather interesting turn when speaker Steve Keil diagnoses Bulgaria's problem as a lack of fun.  I wanted to share this video because it is an amazing example of the profound effect that devoting too much energy to serious business 24/7 can have on not only an individual but on a society as a whole.



Some of the most profound points that I think Steve mentions in the video are:

"Play: our brains are hardwired for play. Evolution has selected, over millions and billions of years, for play in animals and in humans. And you know what? Evolution does a really, really good job of deselecting traits that aren't advantageous to us and selecting traits for competitive advantage. Nature isn't stupid, and it selected for play. Throughout the animal kingdom, for example: ants. Ants play. Maybe you didn't know that. But when they're playing, they're learning the social order and dynamics of things. Rats play, but what you might not have known is that rats that play more have bigger brains and they learn tasks better, skills. Kittens play. We all know kittens play. But what you may not know is that kittens deprived of play are unable to interact socially. They can still hunt, but they can't be social. Bears play. But what you may not know is that bears that play more survive longer. It's not the bears that learn how to fish better. It's the ones that play more."

"For example, [play] has been shown to stimulate neural growth in the amygdala, in the area where it controls emotions. It's been shown to promote pre-frontal cortex development where a lot of cognition is happening. As a result, what happens? We develop more emotional maturity if we play more. We develop better decision-making ability if we play more."

"The opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression. It's depression. In fact, play improves our work."

I think that last statement is the one that is the most profound to me because it is so true.  Every time I find myself at the point where I want nothing more than to curl up under the covers and never come back out again I can almost always associate it with a lack of fun in my life.  Bring back the fun, my emotions stabilize, my ideas suddenly get better, I am more motivated while I am working and life is just better as a whole.

So even though it may sound silly, or you may feel like you don't have time for it right now, be inspired to add a little fun into your daily routine. If anyone asks you what you are doing you can just tell them that you are expanding the size of your brain, improving your creativity and decision making abilities and generally winning at life.

Braving The Abyss

Before the world was shaped there was the abyss; a primal chaos of thoughts, actions and ideas that had yet to be formed into the existence we see around us today. This abyss wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t organized and it was far from perfect, yet from that mess, from that chaos emerged one of the most magnificent and complex creations to ever come into being.

I’ll let you in on a little secret, being creative is hard.  As creative people, we rarely have roadmaps to help us on our journeys; there are no guidebooks, no road signs to let us know that we are headed in the right direction.  Instead, we are simply left to wander around in the darkness alone, our fingers crossed, hoping that our dreams and passions are leading us where we want to go and not just simply around in circles.

Along this journey, every now and again, we get lost along the way.  We get anxious, we get depressed and we loose hope of ever finding our way again.

Welcome to The Art Abyss.

The Art Abyss was formed as a place for creative people of all backgrounds to come together and share in a journey, our journey.   While some creative journals chronicle the accomplishments of brilliant minds, ours has taken on the challenge of chronicling the people themselves, the “hows” and the “whys” behind their actions over the “whats” that they produce.

The Art Abyss is a conversation, a journey and a place to stand together.

As a creative community we are great at teaching technique, we can teach you how to hold a paintbrush, dance a tango, visually balance space and bake a cake.  What we so often fail at is communicating with each other how to go about actually living a creative life and enduring the hardships when they come.  How do you handle receiving your 10^th rejection letter, or not knowing where your next pay check is going to come from?  How do you keep yourself from getting burnt out, depressed and blocked?  How do you emotionally and physically survive as a creative person?  How do you brave the abyss?

That is the question that is on our hearts.  We are passionate about creative people and we want to create a space where they can not only be empowered and inspired but educated and encouraged on their own journeys by others who have already gone before them.  Each week we will challenge your hearts as a well as your minds as we journey together through the abyss.  It may not always be pretty, it may not be perfect and it will most likely be just a chaotic jumble of passion but we’re learning perfect isn’t always progress and that is ok with us.

So my question to you now is, how will you brave the abyss?